Thunder Bay Public Library welcomes new Indigenous relations senior advisor
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY — Fort William First Nation’s Stephanie MacLaurin is excited about being able to do more community engagement in their new role as senior advisor, Indigenous relations, at the Thunder Bay Public Library (TBPL).
“I look forward to the different components this position brings together, which is community engagement, strategic planning, policy analysis, and advising,” says MacLaurin, who began their new role on May 20. “Those are all kind of like three of the things I’m really interested in doing. My last position, I didn’t get to do so much community engagement and I really missed that, so this position kind of opens up that aspect of my job that I was missing out on.”
MacLaurin says they were involved with community engagement in one of their previous roles as a mental health crisis response coordinator.
“That was where I really got to get myself involved in community engagement, and what made me realize that I enjoyed that work,” MacLaurin says. “My last job was lands and governance manager with my home community, Fort William First Nation, and that was a lot of policy work, analysis, there were components of creating governing documents, so the only aspect I really missed was that community engagement.”
MacLaurin says their education includes a diploma in Police Foundations, a double Honours Bachelor of Arts in Political Science (Pre-Law) and Indigenous Learning, and a Master’s degree in Indigenous Governance.
“All of those kind of have a component of looking at policy, at law, at legislation, analyzing it, providing insight and introspection in how these laws relate, especially as it pertains to Indigenous people,” MacLaurin says.
MacLaurin says they feel their experience has prepared them well for their new role at the TBPL.
“I’m looking forward to contributing to the library but also all of the learning that I know is going to come with this role,” MacLaurin says.
MacLaurin says the late Robyn Medicine, the previous senior advisor, Indigenous relations at TBPL, created Indigenous Knowledge Centres at all four TBPL libraries, noting that the Brodie and Waverley libraries have two of the larger collections and the Mary JL Black and County Park libraries have smaller collections.
“Robyn Medicine and then Craig Waboose, who is the Indigenous relationships facilitator … did a lot of incredible work with the Indigenous Knowledge Centre,” MacLaurin says. “So I’ll be looking to Craig for a lot of my training and helping me to understand what they did, and I’m also really looking forward to working with him to continue building on that Indigenous Knowledge Centre.”
MacLaurin recalls visiting the Mary JL Black library when they were about six or seven-years-old.
“So Mary J has always been so close to my heart,” MacLaurin says. “And then as a student in university, I always came to Brodie and Mary J, and I would plop myself down somewhere and do my research, my reading, my writing. So the library has, my whole life, been really close to my heart.”
MacLaurin says the library’s collection of historical documents came in handy during their university studies.
“So I would be in the lower level of Brodie and they had microfiche that I was into, all kinds of maps, all kinds of government documents,” MacLaurin says. “There’s just so much information and learning at the library.”
MacLaurin enjoys the opportunity to go to work in the library in their new position.
“Being where I am at in my life right now and looking back on how much the library influenced me throughout my life, I have a lot of pride and a lot of love that I’m in this position right now,” MacLaurin says. “I worked really hard for this my whole life, so it is a wonderful feeling every day walking in here. I’m still in disbelief that I’m here and that I get to do this work.”
Raili Roy, director of community development at TBPL, says they were thrilled to welcome MacLaurin to the TBPL team.
“They stood out as an exceptional candidate, and we feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with them,” Roy says. “We have much meaningful and rewarding work ahead, and Stephanie shares our enthusiasm to get started.”